Butterfly Bakery of Vermont – Roasted Pumpkin Tomato Hot Sauce
Bitter: 🟡🟡○○○
Salty: 🟡🟡○○○
Sour/Tangy:🟡🟡🟡🟡○
Sweet: 🟡🟡○○○
Umami: 🟡🟡○○○
Heat: 🟡🟡○○○○○○○○
Quick Flavor Notes: Tangy, rich, naturally sweet
Recommended: Yes
Texture: Medium with seeds and small bits
Ingredients: White vinegar, Familia Farm red jalapenos, LePage Farm roasted pumpkin, Dog River Farm tomatoes, Full Moon Farm maple wood smoked onions, Dutchess Farm red habanero, Full Moon Farm garlic scapes, salt, Dutchess Farm fresh rosemary.
Going through my boxes of sauces looking for the next one to open up this sauce spoke to me. I believe this was originally released around this time last year which makes sense given the ingredients. There’s something about this late-summer/early-autumn season where you can simultaneously still get ripe summer tomatoes and autumnal vegetables like pumpkins that makes for some interesting culinary combinations. Although pumpkin spice items are beginning to appear on menus here in Florida it’s still solidly summer and will be at least into December so I thought I could use all of the help I could get to get myself into the fall spirit.
Roasted Tomato Pumpkin Hot Sauce is one of the more involved recipes I’ve seen from Butterfly Bakery of Vermont. Not only do we have two different peppers – red jalapenos from Familia Farm and red habaneros from Dutchess Farm, but also three vegetables with the LePage Farm roasted pumpkin, Dog River Farm tomatoes, and Full Moon Farm maple wood smoked onions. Add to that the aromatics in the form of Full Moon Farm garlic scapes and Duchtess Farm fresh rosemary and there’s a lot going on. LePage Farm isn’t one that I can recall seeing on a Butterfly Bakery of Vermont label before but it’s entirely possible I’ve just missed it. According to their website they’ve been a family farm since 1865 and are located in Barre, VT, the same town as Butterfly Bakery of Vermont themselves. I’m also used to seeing the garlic scapes coming from Pete’s Greens however I imagine that they must go through quite a lot of them so have multiple sources.
Like most Butterfly Bakery of Vermont micro-batch sauces this has plenty of seeds and some smaller vegetable and pepper bits for a great texture. With the pumpkin and onions this one is a tiny bit thicker in consistency closer to medium than the normal medium-thin of their sauces. There’s a bit of smoke from the smoked onions in the aroma as well as the vinegar tang and some sweetness. The flavor of Roasted Pumpkin Tomato Hot Sauce comes across more as an amalgam than having any particular ingredient stand out. The vinegar and tomato tang is up front, with the tomato softening the vinegar somewhat, with the slight smoke of and sweetness of the maple-wood smoked onions right on the tail. There’s that almost-jammy sweetness from the ripe red jalapenos combined with the sweetness of the roasted pumpkin and then that sharper heat and fruity flavor from the red habaneros. The rosemary is a genius addition as it adds just a hint of piney woodsy flavors that cut through the sweeter elements in the sauce. The overall result is an incredibly well balanced sauce that combines the natural sweetness of the peppers and vegetables, a very gentle amount of smoke, a great amount of tanginess, and a chile pepper flavor that still cuts through the other ingredients. The garlic scapes aren’t very forward, but I believe that’s a choice Butterfly Bakery of Vermont typically makes in their sauces as the scapes have a more gentle flavor than bulb garlic which to my knowledge they’ve never used in any of their own branded sauces. The heat level isn’t high but does have some initial sting as is typical of habaneros, though there is more kick than you’d expect from a sauce that’s predominantly jalapeno based.
The bottle seems very insistent that this sauce is great with soup so I had to try that first. I tried this with some clam chowder, which I normally find to be a bit too creamy, and this is perfect with it. Roasted Pumpkin Tomato Hot Sauce is tangy enough to cut right through the cream and the bit of smoke along with the sweet roasted pumpkin and tomato gave it a lot more depth than using something simpler like Tabasco. I thought that with the tomato and rosemary that this would be good with Italian food as well so I tried it with some lasagna and while it works I think the amount of tang in the sauce is a bit too much to be a perfect match. It is, however, a great match for a breakfast burrito. Since tomatoes, jalapenos, onions, and garlic are common ingredients in a salsa already combined with one I found it to be a great pairing with even the rosemary playing well and the slight pumpkin sweetness being nice in the morning.
While I believe this sauce is not out of stock it’s a good bet that Butterfly Bakery of Vermont will release something similar in the coming months as they’ve done plenty of sauces featuring pumpkin, squash, and tomato. When they do I can heartily recommend them, they’ve always been a great combination any time I’ve tried them. This sauce is also all natural with no artificial preservatives, flavors, colors, or thickeners.
